He was a teammate of Moses Malone for 5 seasons and coached 9 and a half season Hakeem Olajuwon.
Has he ever compared them on the media? Or shared his opinion about them?
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He was a teammate of Moses Malone for 5 seasons and coached 9 and a half season Hakeem Olajuwon.
Has he ever compared them on the media? Or shared his opinion about them?
I'm sure he has. It's likely a sports journalist from a Houston newspaper asked him that question over the years.
Good question, maybe googling it up via the newspaper archives might turn up something.
[QUOTE=Gotterdammerung]I'm sure he has. It's likely a sports journalist from a Houston newspaper asked him that question over the years.
Good question, maybe googling it up via the newspaper archives might turn up something.[/QUOTE]
I've already googled it but didn't find anything.:rant
Here's a start (very brief mention of Moses), I'll see what else I can find:
[QUOTE=MICHAEL MURPHY, Staff][SIZE="6"][B][CENTER]THE DREAM SHAKE/Legendary, elusive move earns place in history[/CENTER][/B][/SIZE]
Houston Chronicle - Sunday, May 28, 1995
It was the NBA's version of the old shell game, right there for millions of fans to see on a national television audience.
Hakeem Olajuwon turned, ready to make his move to the basket. David Robinson crouched low, muscles tensed as he readied himself for what was to come.
Perhaps if Robinson had known at the time, he might have just gotten out of the way. Maybe there could have been a way to avoid being made the pigeon in what so far has become the defining moment of the Western Conference finals. But there was no such foresight for Robinson.
Olajuwon took a hard dribble, pump-faked left, showed the ball, spun, pumped right and showed the ball again. Robinson, not biting on the first move, finally went airborne as he fell for the second. Yeah, now you see it, now you don't. The sucker play had worked again.
As Robinson flew by, Olajuwon went back to his left, ducked under and kissed the ball off the glass for two of his 41 points as the Rockets took Game 2 and a 2-0 lead in the series. The Spurs responded Friday night, winning 107-102 to cut the Rockets' lead to 2-1, but Olajuwon had another huge game with 43 points.
Indeed, there's trouble in Mr. Robinson's neighborhood and the reason is a nasty little move by Olajuwon called the "Dream Shake."
"Oh, it's just a move," said Olajuwon with a shrug, attempting to describe the maneuver.
No, the master con artist wasn't about to spill the beans and tip off all the unwitting dupes on what goes into this so-called Dream Shake.
There would be no detailed analysis of this mass of twitches, tics, feints, fakes and drop-steps that lead to so many hook shots, dunks and fallaway 15-footers. But would it help? Even those who are used to seeing Olajuwon 's athletic shell game are baffled.
"I don't know if I can describe it," said Clyde Drexler, who has been watching the move develop since the two played together at the University of Houston in the early 80s. "I really don't know if I'd want to describe it because I don't want people to be able to defend it."
Olajuwon just laughed when approached about the move that looks a bit like Houdini struggling to get out of a straitjacket (which isn't a bad analogy, considering the defenses Olajuwon faces every night).
According to Olajuwon , to find the genesis of the Dream Shake, you have to go back two decades to the dusty soccer fields of Lagos, Nigeria. Back before Olajuwon dreamed of playing basketball for a living, he played sports such as team handball, field hockey and his true love, soccer.
"Many people do not know this, but it's not really a basketball move," he said. "It's a soccer move. In a soccer game, when you're running to the ball and somebody's chasing you from behind, you have to misdirect them and control the ball. When they kick the ball towards your goal, you are chasing the ball, trying to stop it and go back the other way. So you have to fake the ball to misdirect him so you can control the ball and go the other way.
"So how can you control the ball and go the other way when somebody's chasing you at full speed? You have to misdirect him. It's much the same (in basketball) because there's somebody behind you. You want to confuse them."
Olajuwon stopped and looked up, his hands spread in a see-how-easy-it-is gesture. "I realized that in basketball, you have the man behind you, just like in soccer," he said. "I just translated it over to basketball. It's nothing much."
No, not much. Only the most effective weapon in basketball today.
In the history of the NBA, there have been few of what can be called signature moves -- unstoppable scoring maneuvers that are associated with a particular player.
If you dust off the old black-and-white films of the Minneapolis Lakers you'll find the first real signature move in the NBA. George Mikan, big No. 99, used to have a sweeping hook that was as automatic as any shot in the history of the league. Later years saw the arrival of Wilt Chamberlain's powerful Dipper Dunk and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's soft, graceful Sky Hook.
Then came the Dream Shake.
"Hakeem has probably combined parts of all of those (other shots)," said LA Lakers scout Stan Albeck. "That makes him completely different from any center in the NBA. He's a master of footwork, and footwork is what enables you to get your shot off in this league. It's not the shot itself and it's not the fake, it's the footwork that creates the situation where you get the shot off."
Pete Newell, the former Cal coach who runs an annual big-man's camp for the NBA, agreed. Olajuwon has attended Newell's camp twice, once as an observer before his junior year at the University of Houston and again the following year, right before being drafted by the Rockets. Newell was impressed by Olajuwon 's footwork, which he said is the best in the league because of the soccer background.
"I'm a great believer that soccer can help a basketball player because it gives him ambidexterity in his feet," Newell said. "If you're righthanded, then usually you're right-footed and if you're lefthanded, then you're left-footed. So many players don't develop their off foot. But in soccer, the pace of the game forces you to get ambidextrous with your feet. That's probably the main reason he has such tremendously advanced footwork."
Even with the sophisticated video breakdowns every team has at their disposal, the Dream Shake is a marvelous mystery. Albeck, who has worked with Chamberlain and Abdul-Jabbar among others in a career that stretches back to the old American Basketball Association, just shakes his head and smiles when he discusses Olajuwon 's Dream Shake.
"That move is unique to Hakeem," Albeck said. "I don't know who got ahold of him early, but they really did a great job of teaching him post moves. Like I said, I don't know who it was, but I'd sure be interested in finding out."
Guy Lewis, that's who. Lewis, Olajuwon 's coach at the University of Houston, taught a three-part system called the "Big Step" program to every big man who played for the Cougars. Elvin Hayes learned it. Ken Spain learned it. And Olajuwon learned it.
"It's easy to say, but so hard to teach," Lewis said. "When I name the steps, people will say, "Good gosh, anybody can do that,' but not everybody can do it. I've seen lots of college players who can't do it and I've seen pros -- centers -- who can't.
"It starts with a simple thing like catching the ball. You've seen a lot of big guys not pay attention to where the ball is and when the guards throw it in to them, they're not ready for it and they fumble the ball away. Hakeem very, very seldom fumbles the ball away.
[/QUOTE]
continued...
[QUOTE]"Step No. 2 is check the defense. Don't try to do something before you know where the defense is. And Step No. 3 is step to the basket. I always added a fourth thing to it. I always told them to step to the basket and dunk it."
Which is exactly what Olajuwon did in college. Often. But over the years, which included daily workouts at Fonde Recreation Center against Moses Malone, the Dream Shake has grown as Olajuwon learned the nuances of playing in the NBA.
Pump fakes that were successful on the college level didn't always work against pros such as Malone, Abdul-Jabbar, Bill Walton and Patrick Ewing. Along the way, adjustments had to be made, the biggest of which led to his most potent move.
Instead of turning towards the basket and the inevitable double teams, Olajuwon began spinning away, toward the baseline. The drop-step power move became a fallaway finesse move that usually resulted in a midrange jumper -- a shot that has become as accurate as any in the game.
"It's like when Moses (Malone) used to do all of his stuff," said Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich . "You can't stop it. There's no defense for that shot. He's fading away from 15 feet. What do you do?"
Newell agreed.
"In these last two years he has gotten so many moves that trying to guard him man-on-man is literally impossible," Newell said. "His fallback jumpshot on the baseline is almost automatic. He's so comfortable shooting that shot that he doesn't miss it very often."
The baseline fadeaway is just another example of Olajuwon 's offensive genius, Albeck said. The difference between good players and great ones is the ability to stay one step ahead of the league's defenses.
"He's expanded the move over the years," Albeck said. "The more you play in the league, the more concerned you become about how to create space between you and the defender. So he's creating that space with the same movement, only he's moving it out a bit farther.
"And when he has the ball around the free-throw line area, what makes him also dangerous is that he can face up. Now he puts the ball on the floor and he gets you going in one direction, but his offensive footwork is going to be better than your defensive footwork.
"You look at centers like Shaquille O'Neal and David Robinson. Those guys have monumental tasks every night, but Hakeem is so consistent and so steady that you say he's going to get his 28 points and 10 rebounds, and you're like in a state of shock if he doesn't. That's what makes him unique and separates him from the other great centers."
What's next? Over the years, the Dream Shake has slowly migrated out to 17-foot range, so what's next for Olajuwon ? Lewis said to stay tuned.
"Pro scouts asked me when he came out, "Will he improve in the pros?' " Lewis said. "I said, "Good gosh, he'll improve for the next seven or eight years.' Well, last year he got the MVP, and that was his 11th year, so he improved for 11 years.
"And I'll tell you something -- I think he was a better player this year than he was last year. I really do. I see no reason why he won't be better next year, either."
But one day, Olajuwon will join Mikan, Abdul-Jabbar and Chamberlain, not only in retirement, but into the Hall of Fame. But before he does, could Olajuwon pass on the move that frustrated so many an NBA opponent to a young, up-and-coming center? Indeed, can the Dream Shake be coached?
"You can teach him the basics," said Olajuwon , stroking the small wisp of a goatee. "What he then has to develop is the reaction and the quickness. I can teach him the basic footsteps -- how you can misdirect and the principal of how you can use it effectively.
"But he would have to make it his own. You have to develop it to be yours."
Albeck had a suggestion for Olajuwon :
"People will pay a million dollars to learn that move," he said. "He'd better patent that move, put it on a tape and sell it. They'd sell a million of those." ____________
Evolution of a dream.
The five steps in which Hakeem Olajuwon 's offensive game -- and the "Dream Shake" -- evolved:
1 -- The footwork in the Dream Shake was, according to Olajuwon , originally a soccer move. As a youth, Olajuwon developed superior footwork playing soccer.
2 -- At the University of Houston, coach Guy V. Lewis taught Olajuwon the "Big Step" method for big men that also helped develop such players as Elvin Hayes and Ken Spain. This gave Olajuwon a power move to the basket in the paint.
3 -- Late in his career at UH, Olajuwon began playing against veteran Moses Malone and other pros at the Fonde Rec Center in Houston, which allowed Olajuwon to develop fakes and moves to the basket that would be effective in the NBA.
4 -- Olajuwon began to develop a fallaway, baseline jumper that complemented his power moves.
5 -- Olajuwon has developed more shooting range at this stage of his career, making his other moves more effective. __________
What they say about the Dream Shake
Stan Albeck, LA Lakers scout -- "It's not the shot itself and it's not the fake, it's the footwork that creates the situation where you get the shot off."
Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich -- "You can't stop it. There's no defense for that shot. He's fading away from 15 feet. What do you do?"
Pete Newell -- "In these last two years he has gotten so many moves that trying to guard him man-on-man is literally impossible. His fall-back jumpshot on the baseline is almost automatic. He's so comfortable shooting that shot that he doesn't miss it very often."
Clyde Drexler -- "I don't know if I can describe it. I really don't know if I'd want to describe it because I don't want people to be able to defend it."
Hakeem Olajuwon -- "Oh, it's just a move." ___________
40-something.
Hakeem Olajuwon has two 40-point games in this series. Here is a list of his career 40-point playoff games:
Year..Opp.....Pts...Result..
1987..Seattle ....49..L 128-125..
1984..Portland ....46..W 114-104..
1995..Utah ....45..L 102-100..
1995..San Antonio....43..L 107-102..
1988..Dallas ....41..W 104-99..
1994..Utah ....41..W 104-99..
1995..San Antonio....41..W 106-93..
1995..Utah ....40..W 104-99..
-Game 1, first-round; -Game 3, Western Conference finals; -Game 2, Western Conference finals; -Game four, first round[/QUOTE]
Another (not great, but there's some mention of each)... [QUOTE=FRAN BLINEBURY, STAFF][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]NBA ALL-STAR GAME - Moses Malone - If the blue collar fits, he'll wear it - and go about his business like no player before or since
[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]Houston Chronicle (TX) - Friday, February 17, 2006
NOBODY ever worked harder on a basketball court than Moses Malone.
Maybe longer. Maybe prettier. Occasionally better. Never harder.
It is trite to say that Malone was the ultimate blue-collar worker. To describe him as carrying a lunch pail doesn't begin to scratch the surface. What he carried mostly was his team.
"More than any player I've watched or worked with closely, nobody did more to fulfill his responsibility to try to win a game than Moses ," said Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson. "He absolutely loved to play the game and did it to his physical limits every time he ever played."
He jumped from high school in Petersburg, Va., straight to the old ABA as a 19-year-old and played six seasons with the Rockets from 1976 to 1982, winning two Most Valuable Player awards and leading the club to the NBA Finals in 1981.
Doing his work quietly
"It was amazing to see Moses ' development in those years," said former teammate Rudy Tomjanovich . "I've been so lucky to have been a part of Hakeem Olajuwon 's career as a coach. But to watch Moses ' development up close, as one of his peers, was really something unique and special.
"I remember when he first came into the league, he was just a skinny kid who wanted to get the ball and face up to the basket and shoot jumpers. At that time, he wanted to be Dr. J and get by people with his quickness. He was so skinny. You wondered if he was even going to survive.
"But what none of us knew in those early days, even playing with him, was the kind of pride Moses had, the willingness to work and really work hard. One day I went into a gym just off the Southwest Freeway, where I'd occasionally go to get in a little extra workout with the weights. I got to talking to one of the trainers, and he said, ?Oh yeah, Moses is in here every morning, pumping the iron.' He was conscious of his body. He was working his butt off to get bigger and stronger. He just never said anything. I don't think he wanted any of us to know it."
It wasn't long before it was obvious. From 1978 to 1982, Malone never averaged fewer than 24.8 points and 14.5 rebounds for the Rockets.
Just as important, it was Malone who took a young Olajuwon downtown to Fonde Recreation Center and taught him what it meant to be a pro.
"The times I spent with Moses at Fonde were like going to basketball college," said Olajuwon . "He pushed me to get better. He tested me all of the time. He challenged me. He showed me how he worked."
Dawson just shakes his head.
Leaving it all on the floor
"Idealistically, you'd like to think that everybody in the NBA could be like Moses ," he said. "But realistically, you know that's not possible. I used to sit on the bench and watch him work like nobody else to get rebounds, to put in follow shots. I'd see him play 48 minutes and then come into the locker room and literally collapse in his locker. It would actually take five or 10 minutes before he could even move."
Malone played 19 NBA seasons, won his third MVP award in 1983, when he led the Philadelphia 76ers to the championship, and finished as the league's fifth all-time leading scorer and rebounder. He was named to the Hall of Fame in 2001.
At age 50, Malone can still be found in the gym playing ball most days, and he's currently acting as an unofficial rebounding coach for the Sixers.
"When you look back over the 25 years that I played, the game did me good," Malone said. "The opportunity to be an All-Star, to be one of the 50 greatest players and then to get the call to the Hall of Fame."
According to Rudy T, the coming-out party for Malone was the 1977 first-round playoff series when the Rockets beat the Washington Bullets.
"Actually, it was Moses beating the Bullets," Tomjanovich said. "They had Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld, a pair of Hall of Famers, on the front line, and he beat them both. Nothing fancy. No strategy. No secrets.
" Moses just worked."
[/QUOTE]
This seems to be the last one I can find, not ideal either:
[QUOTE=Jerome Solomon, Houston Chronicle] [B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]This was old school, with whine SOLOMON: Big matchup[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
Houston Chronicle (TX) - Saturday, March 7, 2009
LISTENING to the talk this week, you might wonder if Shaquille O'Neal received a pacifier for his 37th birthday.
Perhaps Yao Ming re-gifted one of his. Yep, the two big ol' 7-foot-plus stars gathered on the floor Friday night at Toyota Center to wrap up Whiner's Week in the NBA.
That lesser-known annual celebration comes after All-Star weekend, typically with about 20 games left in the regular season.
Shaq (7-1) and Yao (7-6) led the way this week, whining about how they are officiated differently than the normal-size players.
"It's not my fault I ate my Frosted Flakes when I was little, and you ate Wheaties," O'Neal joked about the little fellas in the league before the Rockets' 116-112 victory.
Yao, following the script, agreed there is a double standard. They are right. Every now and then they get hacked and it isn't called, but unless Wrestlemania breaks out in the paint, who besides biased home fans wants to hear the whining?
Well, it's not just for them.
"(Big men have) been doing it for 50 years," Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler said. "It's to get an edge. They know the officials watch the news and read the newspaper."
Rudy Tomjanovich , who played with Moses Malone and coached Hakeem Olajuwon , recognized the whining.
"It's one of those things," Tomjanovich said. "I'm telling you, 10 years from now, the next group of really good big guys will be saying the same thing. I don't think it's a conspiracy. It's just basketball."
This was fun basketball. Every bump and grind, every twist and shout, every hack of a Shaq and every pow of a Yao.
"Tonight was a lot of weightlifting for me," Yao said. "It was a 400-pound guy, I'm playing. He always says,
This one doesn't talk much about Moses, but here Rudy puts Hakeem alongside Wilt/Russ (and therein ahead of him):
[QUOTE=KELLY CARTER ; The Orange County Register][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]PLAYING LIKE A DREAM - NBA FINALS: While lesser lights become heroes for a day, the Rockets' Olajuwon rarely turns in anything less than a stellar performance.[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
The Orange County Register - Tuesday, June 13, 1995
In Game 1, it was Kenny Smith. Game 2, it was Sam Cassell. Game 3, it was Robert Horry. In every game, it is Hakeem Olajuwon .
Rarely does Olajuwon get to play the hero's role. When you are as consistently great as he is, you tend to get overlooked by the media, always on the lookout for a fresh story. But there is no ignoring Dream.
He is the real reason the Rockets can sweep the Magic on
Wednesday for its second consecutive NBA title. Houston leads the best-of-seven series, 3-0. Smith, Cassell, Horry and mostly Clyde Drexler have played major roles in The Finals, but they would not be playing for the title if not for Olajuwon , at 32 arguably the best center in the league.
"I don't really like to be compared to others," said Olajuwon , who is averaging 32.0 points, 10.3 rebounds and 5.3 assists in The Finals. "It's very difficult to say `the best' because everybody has a style of play that is their own."
Olajuwon definitely has his own style. Jump hook, drop-step fadeaway, spin move, 18-foot spot-up jumper, pass. He can do it all.
"Guarding Hakeem is like having one of my worst nightmares," Orlando forward Horace Grant said. "He has so many moves in the post, it's unbelievable. You can't compare him to anyone. He's the best in my book, and he has been for a long time."
It's hard to believe he didn't start playing basketball until he was 15. Is it any wonder " Olajuwon " in one Nigerian language translates into "always being on top"? Blessed with coordination and footwork, basketball came pretty easy to the guy who excelled in soccer, field hockey and team handball. All he had to do was learn the rules.
Forced to develop an inside game when his college coach, Guy Lewis, instructed the other players not to pass to Olajuwon unless he was in the paint, Olajuwon looked forward to summers when he could play his outside game. Once in the pros, going up against Moses Malone built his confidence.
Now Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich ranks Olajuwon with Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell.
"And you could make the argument that he may be even above that level," Tomjanovich said. "He's so versatile. He goes inside, outside. He's a defender. He's a passer. He just does everything. I've been with him since his first day here. I scouted him for the draft, and he still amazes me."
Olajuwon was most amazing in the Western Conference finals against San Antonio's David Robinson. After what Olajuwon did to Robinson, the Spurs center should have considered handing over his MVP trophy. Assistant Rockets coach Carroll Dawson had seen the moves before _ at various times.
"But for him to constantly do it time and time and time again, to stay up as high as he did, I had never seen that before," Dawson said. "If he missed a shot, it was almost surprising."
Never has Dawson seen Olajuwon 's concentration or confidence higher. Perhaps, it has to do with Olajuwon 's spirituality.
"He has an inner peace about him that's just changed his whole game," Dawson said. "I thought, at times, he would get a little too excitable and it would affect his overall game. It doesn't happen now. He stays within himself."
There was no single thing that made Olajuwon , Nigerian-born but a U.S. citizen since 1993, return to his Islamic faith. Just a part of maturing, he said. His spirituality has helped him put everything in perspective and helped him to understand life.
"You are more mature. You have inner peace. It makes your job so much easier and fun," Olajuwon said.
Olajuwon seems to reach his objective every time out. Sunday's 31-point performance marked the 15th time in 21 games this postseason he has scored 30 or more points. He likely will join Michael Jordan as the only other player to win back-to-back Finals MVP trophies, if he can beat out sentimental favorite Drexler.
Whoever gets it, Drexler is glad to see former college teammate Olajuwon getting so much long-deserved attention.
"It has taken a long time," Drexler said. "This guy has been great for a very long time. I mean great, not just good, great. It's good to see him get the recognition that he deserves. He's certainly worthy of it and has been for a long time."[/QUOTE]
Unrelated, but thought it'd be worth the post:
[QUOTE=CLIFTON BROWN][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]Better than Jordan - But is it enough for Houston?[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
Sun Herald, The (Sydney, Australia) - Sunday, June 11, 1995
HAKEEM Olajuwon acknowledges that only a few players inspire him to read the small print scores in the newspaper and that Shaquille O'Neal is one of them.
So as Olajuwon sat at his locker last week in Houston, brushing his hair and trying to be humble about the way he had just humbled David Robinson, it was not surprising that the brush stopped in midstroke when he was asked about O'Neal.
"My task is going to be even bigger," Olajuwon said with a smile of anticipation. "I'm jumping from the frying pan into the fire."
But Olajuwon has no intention of being cooked.
As the defending champion Rockets were preparing to open the National Basketball Association finals against O'Neal's Orlando Magic, Olajuwon 's game had ascended to a level reserved for legends. His dominance of Robinson and the San Antonio Spurs was so extraordinary in the Western Conference finals that people stopped arguing about which centre was better.
Instead, he was being compared to the great centres of all time, not only for his numbers, but for his combination of speed, agility, and improvisation that make him perhaps the most athletic and graceful centre ever.
The challenge of facing Robinson inspired Olajuwon to new heights. Will the challenge of O'Neal do the same? The Rockets hope so. Because when Olajuwon is at his best, the Rockets believe that nobody is better. Not even No 45, or No 23, who plays for the Chicago Bulls.
"Michael Jordan is a close second right now," said Rockets guard Kenny Smith when asked to assess who is the best player in basketball. "But in terms of right this second, Hakeem is the best basketball player. He's on a different level. Jordan's the only one I've seen take it to that level. Right now, Hakeem is there. It makes the game easy for everybody."
Olajuwon has averaged 33 points a game in the playoffs. And while he will be tested by O'Neal, that is what Olajuwon wants. At 23, Orlando's gifted centre has reached the finals in his third NBA season. He is trying to do what Olajuwon could not - win a championship in his first finals appearance.
OLAJUWON has been where O'Neal is. The Rockets reached the finals in Olajuwon 's second season in 1986, but were beaten by Boston. There were flaws in Olajuwon 's game then, the same way that free-throw shooting is a flaw in O'Neal's game.
But while O'Neal's awesome game is still unfinished, Olajuwon , at 32, is a complete work of art. A devout Muslim, he rededicated himself to the Islamic religion in 1991, and he has found the peace and contentment he did not have earlier in his career. A well-liked player who is affectionately called "Dream" by his teammates, Olajuwon laughs easily and enjoys the game more than ever. He is an intelligent player who studies his opponents, and playing with an unselfish team has allowed him to maximise his skills.
After winning the league's most valuable player award last year, as well as his first championship, Olajuwon hired a trainer to improve his strength and stamina. As a result, his already remarkable endurance became even better.
He averaged 43.5 minutes during the conference finals, yet he rarely appeared to be breathing hard. Even when he missed eight games in late March and early April with anemia, he turned that into a positive. He lifted weights and worked out until he was cleared to play.
It is hard to fathom, but possible. Olajuwon may still be getting better.
"One of my biggest pet peeves with some players is that they don't work on their game," said Leslie Alexander, the Rockets' owner. "Some guys are the same player five years later. But Hakeem never stops working. Sometimes when you watch him on the court, you'll catch him smiling. He just seems so happy."
Any player with moves like Olajuwon 's would be happy. Footwork is the key to his game, and many of his moves are based on principles of soccer, the sport that he played growing up in Lagos, Nigeria. Teammates argue about which Olajuwon move is their favourite.
There is no way to guess what he may do when he catches the ball in the low post. He has up-and-under moves, a patented fadeaway jumper, head fakes, a variety of spin moves, and a deadly mid-range jumper.
His shot is rarely blocked because defenders rarely time his moves. Dave Cowens, one of San Antonio's assistant coaches and formerly a great centre with the Celtics, played against Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, and Moses Malone. So Cowens knows a thing or two about pivot play.
But in dismantling Robinson, Olajuwon showed Cowens things he had never seen. It was not so much that Robinson played poorly. It was that Olajuwon played so well.
"No question about it, he's a phenomenal player," Cowens said. "If you look at the way he's built, he's a big guy, but his centre of gravity is remarkable. He doesn't really have long legs or a long torso. It's great for balance. Plus he has the soccer background as well as a great amount of concentration."
THAT will be Orlando's job during the finals. O'Neal will have one advantage over Olajuwon that he enjoys against everyone he faces - strength. But avoiding foul trouble will be a major challenge for O'Neal against a player with so many moves. Meanwhile, Olajuwon fouled out of just three games this season.
The Rockets have needed more than just Olajuwon to get this far, and they will need more to beat Orlando. But the Rockets are confident.
The mid-season trade that brought Clyde Drexler was a shrewd move, giving the Rockets a versatile, experienced player who improved their running game, their passing, their defence, and their perimeter game. And as the defending champions, the Rockets, coached superbly by Rudy Tomjanovich , have shown great character by beating the teams that had the top three regular-season records - San Antonio, Phoenix, and Utah.
And Olajuwon has been sensational. The Rockets believe he should have won the MVP award again. Instead, he finished fifth.
When asked who he believed to be the best player in the game, Olajuwon would not say. But he did say: "I'm happy with myself. I like my game."
He would also like another championship. And so far during the play-offs, no one has stopped him from getting what he wants.[/QUOTE]
Another unrelated, but good article:
[QUOTE=Martin McNeal Bee Staff Writer][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]OLAJUWON JOINS THE NBA LEGENDS[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
SACRAMENTO BEE - Friday, June 9, 1995
If there is one player in these 1995 NBA Finals wholly equipped to recognize greatness, it could be Orlando forward Horace Grant.
He has played with Michael Jordan, generally regarded as the best player in the world. He currently plays with Shaquille O'Neal, generally regarded as the NBA's center of the next decade.
But ask Grant about Houston's Hakeem Olajuwon , and the 6-foot-10 power forward has little difficulty making his feelings known.
"He is the best center out there and you don't compare the best to anyone," said Grant, who likely will spend another very uncomfortable part of tonight's pivotal Game 2 attempting to defend Olajuwon .
"Guarding him is like one of my worst nightmares," Grant said. "He just has so many moves in the low post."
These NBA playoffs have been a pseudo-emergence for Olajuwon . That in itself is a fairly strong feat.
Consider that the 7-foot Nigerian native is coming off a 1993-94 season in which he became the first player to win the NBA regular-season Most Valuable Player award, the Defensive Player of the Year award and the NBA Finals MVP award. He also led the Rockets to their first league championship.
This season, Olajuwon 's 11th, he appears to be even better. It came as no surprise that Olajuwon just happened to be in the right place at the right time Wednesday night, tipping in the game-winning shot in overtime in Game 1. He had 31 points, six rebounds, seven assists, four blocked shots and two steals.
"Hey, we double-and triple-teamed him and he still scored 31 points," said Wayne (Tree) Rollins, Orlando's backup center and assistant coach. "What are" we supposed to do, shoot him?"
Olajuwon has played at such a high level during the playoffs that many ar beginning to believe he belongs in the class of legendary NBA centers - a list currently occupied only by Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Next season, Olajuwon 's 96th point will make him the ninth player to accumulate 20,000 points and 10,000 rebounds. Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, Elgin Baylor, Elvin Hayes, Bob Pettit, Moses Malone, Walt Bellamy and Robert Parish are the others.
"Anybody who cannot see that ( Olajuwon ) has more tools than all of those guys doesn't know the game," said former Kings guard Reggie Theus, who played with and against Olajuwon . "Kareem had the best hook in the history of the game. Russell was the best defender and Wilt did it all inside. Each one had his own one or two areas of specific dominance.
"But Hakeem Olajuwon dominates in so many different areas. And none of them could take you out to 18 feet, shake you and bake you, use the crossover dribble, spin and fake you and either go up and under you or fade away. On top of that, he's a great defensive player and a great team player."
To think, just three seasons ago, Olajuwon was being suspected of a professional athlete's worst offense - feigning an injury. The Rockets suspended him during the 1991-92 season for failing to render services.
But Olajuwon went through a major personal change when he reaffirmed his dedication to the Islamic faith, under which he had grown up in Nigeria. He made his first pilgrimage to Mecca during the summer of 1992.
"Going back to Islam has given me the ability to put everything into perspective," Olajuwon said. "It has given me a better vision of life. You are more mature and your life has new meaning.
"Life without Islam for me was like being without a foundation, and if you don't have a foundation, you can't be whole. I was short-tempered and would react to situations without thinking."
Olajuwon 's focus now is unparalleled.
"I've been with him since the first day," Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. "I scouted him before we drafted him, and he still amazes me. He has to be right up there with the best because he can do so many things. He's so versatile offensively. He can score inside and outside. Defensively, he's great and he has been passing out of the double-teams so effectively during the past couple of seasons."
All-time great centers
Here's how Hakeem Olajuwon of Houston and Shaquille O'Neal of Orlando stack up against the three best centers of all time:
Player Seasons Pts. Reb. Titles
Bill Russell 13 15.1 22.5 11
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 20 24.6 11.2 6
Wilt Chamberlain 14 30.1 22.9 2
Hakeem Olajuwon 11 24.0 12.4 2
Shaquille O'Neal 3 27.3 12.8 0[/QUOTE]
Great finds [B]fpliii[/B]. Thanks a lot.:cheers: :cheers:
Another fun article (a year early with the prediction):
[QUOTE=FRAN BLINEBURY: Staff][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]NBA '93 - Why not the Rockets as champs?[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
Houston Chronicle - Sunday, OCTOBER 31, 1993
IN the days since Michael Jordan stunned the world with the sudden news of his retirement, the film librarians and the print archivists have been working overtime. Newsweek puts out a special collectors edition, newspapers turn out more retrospective words than greeted the conclusion of World War II, and the highlight reels show us such a numbing succession of dunks and dunks and dunks that we begin to wonder how the game of basketball was ever played before this bald-headed extraterres trial beamed down from another planet.
No more Air Jordan. No more takeoffs from the foul line, levitating along the baseline, double-pumping, 360-spinning miracles. No more over the freeway, through the window, off the scoreboard, nothing but net. It is a time to be a bit wistful.
But there are two ways to look at Jordan's now-I'm-here-and-now-I'm-gone departure: as either the door closing on a wondrous era of running and soaring with the Bulls or a gaping window of opportunity opening for the rest of the NBA.
So why not the Rockets?
The team that has teased us and tormented us, dazzled us and disappointed us, streaked and struck out, cruised and cratered, risen and fallen more times than a schizophrenic souffle is now in the best position in the history of the franchise to go all the way.
Better than after the 1981 playoffs when Moses Malone and the gang pulled their upstart wagon into the NBA Finals against the Celtics? Yes, because that group was strictly a one-year wonder that finished with a losing record in the regular season, then rode on the back of their tireless center through a magical spring.
Better than after the 1986 playoffs when the Twin Towers lineup of Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson fast-forwarded its maturation process and pushed into the Finals once more against the Celtics? Yes, because while the Rockets had so many young and talented pairs of legs, Boston still had Larry Bird in his prime, LA still had a hungry Magic Johnson and Detroit under Chuck Daly was coming together as an irresistible force that would not be denied.
But now the dance floor is clear as the NBA opens a season for the first time since the late 1970s without a defending champion intact and a dominant superstar in residence.
Why not the Rockets?
It may have taken a gutsy 3-point basket by Vernon Maxwell late in the fourth quarter to get the Rockets past the Clippers in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series last May and enable them to shed their long-running label of underachievers. Yet the Rockets also came within a whisker of having Mad Max's desperation shot in Game 7 beat Seattle, which would have propelled them into the Western Conference finals and made them very credible overachievers.
Why not the Rockets?
They are anchored by Olajuwon , who used last season to put the charges of selfishness and malcontent behind him and re-established himself as the best center in the game. Were it not that the balloting becomes a popularity poll and Charles Barkley gained votes simply for being outrageous and a member of the Olympic Dream Team, Olajuwon would have justly been named the league's MVP in 1993. Now he is content to be in Houston, has confidence in his teammates and has learned how to use the pass-off to elevate his game and his team to the next level. If he stays healthy, we can expect more of the same.
Why not the Rockets?
With Otis Thorpe and Robert Horry holding down the forward spots, the Rockets have unquestionably the best starting frontline in the league. There are individuals who do some things better than Thorpe and other things better than Horry. But when combined with Olajuwon there is no team that can match them in terms of overall athleticism and ability to run the floor. All that's missing up front is depth.
Why not the Rockets?
You might like to see more stability at guard. You might like to see Kenny Smith grow a spine. But Maxwell toned down some of his wild streak last season, and he demonstrated his dedication to winning while playing with a broken wrist in the playoffs. With the addition of Mario Elie and Sam Cassell and the usual feistiness from Scott Brooks, there just might be enough quality minutes among the whole group to make this a formidable backcourt.
Why not the Rockets?
In Rudy Tomjanovich , the Rockets have their best coach in history and one of the sharpest minds in the NBA. You can't overestimate his contribution to bringing the Rockets together as a cohesive unit that went 55-27 a year ago.
The contenders are everywhere, but they all have their flaws. Can the Suns duplicate last season without Richard Dumas and with questions concerning the health of Barkley? Can the Sonics and George Karl keep from tearing each other apart? Can Clyde Drexler and the Blazers get up off the floor? Can the Knicks stop talking and do the job? Can Shaquille O'Neal and Anfernee Hardaway work what will have to be big magic with the Magic? Can the young Hornets sting in the heat of the playoffs? Can Scottie Pippen and Horace Grant and Toni Kukoc carry on for the Bulls?
In a few more years, the NBA might be in the era of Shaq or Alonzo or Penny or Chris or Larry Johnson. But for now it is a league in transition that is seeking a new identity.
Jordan is gone and, for the first time in more than a decade, the window is wide open for the next NBA champion to fly in.
Why not the Rockets?
Indeed.
CHRONICLE WRITERS' PREDICTIONS.
............MIDWEST...PACIFIC...CENTRAL...ATLANTIC......
............DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION......
Eddie Sefko: Houston..Seattle...Chicago...New York......
............WESTERN CONF...EASTERN CONF...NBA FINALS....
............Houston........New York.......New York......
............over Seattle...over Charlotte.over Houston..
............MIDWEST...PACIFIC...CENTRAL...ATLANTIC......
............DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION......
Ed Fowler:..Houston...Seattle...Cleveland.New York......
............WESTERN CONF...EASTERN CONF...NBA FINALS....
............Seattle........New York.......New York......
............over Houston..over Cleveland..over Seattle..
............MIDWEST...PACIFIC...CENTRAL...ATLANTIC......
............DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION......
Fran Blinebury:Houston.Seattle..Cleveland..New York.....
............WESTERN CONF...EASTERN CONF...NBA FINALS....
............Houston........New York.......Houston.......
............over Seattle..over Charlotte..over New York.
............MIDWEST...PACIFIC...CENTRAL...ATLANTIC......
............DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION......
Dale Robertson:Houston.Phoenix..Cleveland..New York.....
............WESTERN CONF...EASTERN CONF...NBA FINALS....
............Phoenix........New York........Phoenix......
............over Houston..over Cleveland..over New York.
............MIDWEST...PACIFIC...CENTRAL...ATLANTIC......
............DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION......
John P. Lopez:S. Antonio.Phoenix.Chicago..New York......
............WESTERN CONF...EASTERN CONF...NBA FINALS....
............Phoenix........New York........New York.....
...........over San Antonio.over Orlando..over Phoenix..
............MIDWEST...PACIFIC...CENTRAL...ATLANTIC......
............DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION......
Terry Blount:Houston..Phoenix....Chicago..New York......
............WESTERN CONF...EASTERN CONF...NBA FINALS....
............Phoenix........New York........Phoenix......
............over Houston...over Charlotte.over New York.
............MIDWEST...PACIFIC...CENTRAL...ATLANTIC......
............DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION......
Bill Sullivan:.Houston.Seattle...Cleveland..New York....
............WESTERN CONF...EASTERN CONF...NBA FINALS....
............Seattle........New York.......New York......
............over Phoenix..over Charlotte..over Seattle..
............MIDWEST...PACIFIC...CENTRAL...ATLANTIC......
............DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION..DIVISION......
Alan Truex:.S. Antonio.Seattle..Cleveland..New York.....
............WESTERN CONF...EASTERN CONF...NBA FINALS....
............Seattle..........New York........Seattle....
............over S. Antonio.over Cleveland.over New York[/QUOTE]
Last one (seriously, this time, lol):
[QUOTE=FRAN BLINEBURY, Staff][B][SIZE="6"][CENTER]'94 NBA FINALS/RUDY'S TEAM/Plain and simple, Tomjanovich has transformed Rockets into winners[/CENTER][/SIZE][/B]
Houston Chronicle - Wednesday, June 8, 1994
A year ago, when the Rockets finally had been bounced out of the playoffs by the Seattle SuperSonics in a grueling seven-game series, Rudy Tomjanovich retreated to his house near Lake Conroe to work out his frustrations
The plan was to immerse himself in household repairs to take his mind from the bitter defeat, and so it was off to a building supply store to pick up materials. Tomjanovich was looking through bins, gazing up at shelves like any other weekend handyman, when he heard the click of the loudspeaker coming on and then the voice echoing down from the ceiling.
"Attention, shoppers!," said the voice. "We are proud to announce we have a celebrity in aisle seven. . . . No, now he's in aisle eight . . . now nine . . . "
The celebrity was headed for the door.
A year later, on the day after the Rockets eliminated the Utah Jazz and advanced to the NBA Finals for the first time in eight seasons, Tomjanovich and his 10-year-old son, Trey, were trying to relax and unwind from the playoff pressure with a guys' day out, shopping and hanging around the mall.
They eventually made their way to the food court, ordered lunch and were beginning to settle into a conversation, maybe about the Knicks, maybe about the Pacers, maybe about conning Dad into buying one more T-shirt or another pair of shorts, when it happened.
Clapping. Applause. Soon a rousing ovation for a couple of fellas who had to take napkins and wipe the fast food grease from their chins before they could look up into the faces of admiring strangers.
"For the first couple of seconds, we looked around to see if somebody famous had come in," said Tomjanovich . "Then we looked at each other and we started to laugh. It was like, "Who me?' "
Yes, him. Rudy T. Just Rudy.
The guy next door has the Rockets ready to cross the threshold and deliver Houston its first major sports championship, yet you get the feeling he'd be just as happy with hot sand between his toes, a cold one in his hand and the reggae rhythms of Bob Marley filling the air. That's because he would.
"Hey, I'm as dedicated to my job as the next guy," Tomjanovich said. "I just don't want my whole identity to be wrapped up in being a coach. I'll put in the hours and give it everything I've got. I'll live and I'll die with the players on my team who have done all this. But at home, I want to be Dad, and everywhere else, I'd like to be the same guy I've always been."
Just Rudy.
After 24 years with the Rockets organization as a player, scout, assistant coach and now head coach, it's like waking up one day to discover the old clock sitting on your grandmother's mantel actually is a priceless antique.
In only two full seasons on the job, Tomjanovich has transformed the same nucleus of Rockets from fakers into favorites to win it all. He's compiled a franchise-best 115-49 regular-season record in back-to-back seasons and guided the Rockets to consecutive Midwest Division titles for the first time.
Tomjanovich has had a hand in everything from the full flowering of Hakeem Olajuwon into the league's MVP to the speedy emergence of rookie Sam Cassell as a vital cog in the machinery. His fingerprints are everywhere, and now he's close to putting them in a place where Del Harris, Bill Fitch and Don Chaney could not with the Rockets -- on the NBA championship trophy.
Harris, Fitch and Chaney all had MVP talent -- either Moses Malone or Olajuwon -- in the middle of their lineups. But none of them could blend the elements to produce the proper mix. So while the rest of the country probably still thinks first of Rudy T being on the receiving end of the near-fatal punch from Kermit Washington on Dec. 9, 1977, in Houston he's become the most well-known chemist since Madame Curie.
Just Rudy.
It is about 30 minutes after the Rockets have equaled the NBA record for consecutive wins to start a season -- 15 -- by whipping the Knicks 94-85, and Tomjanovich is standing in a hallway outside the locker room at Madison Square Garden answering questions.
His lucky black suit is so damp, you'd think it had been squirted with a garden hose, and the knot in his tie is pulled off to one side. His hair is disheveled. There are dark circles under his eyes. He is alternately taking sips from cans of beer in each hand as a cigarette dangles from his mouth.
"It's a tough job," Tomjanovich repeatedly told his family and friends through the years when they pushed him to make a bid to become head coach. He knew the commitment and the toll it would take on him physically and mentally if he made the step up from being an assistant.
"He'd become a tyrant just talking about it," said his wife, Sophie. "Rudy would say that he was happy doing what he was doing. He was working hard and getting satisfaction from basketball, and he wasn't comfortable taking on all of the rest of the stuff that goes with being the head coach.
"Rudy knew that once he stepped across the line and into that job, there was no turning back. He wasn't going to do it halfway. He told us all that, me and the three kids. He said it wasn't going to be easy.
"There are two things you have to know about Rudy -- he hates losing, and he's direct."
Since Tomjanovich took the job, the Rockets have done little of the former in large part because of the latter. [/QUOTE]
continued...
[QUOTE]In two years, he has turned a fractured cast of characters into a solid unit that feeds off the strength of the whole by being uncomplicated and unscheming.
"He made us a team," said Olajuwon .
Look no further than Olajuwon , who deserves the praise for raising his game to the level of an MVP. But it was Tomjanovich who assisted in the heavy lifting. It was Tomjanovich who convinced Olajuwon it would benefit everyone if he trusted and relied more on his teammates.
It is no coincidence that in two years under Tomjanovich 's system, Olajuwon has shot the ball better than at any time in his career and finished two straight seasons with more assists than turnovers.
Tomjanovich also went to work on Vernon Maxwell, convincing the lightning rod in the backcourt that he frequently could be effective in the role of a playmaker, and it has worked. Maxwell's shots-per-game have been cut drastically, and though the progress may seem, at times, as imperceptible as watching grass grow, Mad Max hasn't been quite so off-the-wall this season.
Tomjanovich dealt with the bizarre episode of the midseason trade that wasn't and turned what could have been a negative with Robert Horry into one of the biggest positives of the postseason. He told Horry he had actually been traded because the Rockets felt the young forward could do so much more.
This reluctant coach has even managed to get the most out of the perpetually pouting Kenny Smith, who in the first half of the season didn't like riding the bench while Scott Brooks played the fourth quarters and who now gives up significant minutes to the rookie Cassell.
Perhaps most important of all has been Tomjanovich 's ability to get the unheralded Otis Thorpe to give up most of his offense in order for the Rockets' inside-outside game from Olajuwon -to-the-bombers to work. On many other teams, Thorpe would be getting 15 to 18 shots a night. There are games when Thorpe doesn't get five with the Rockets. Yet he gives them stout defense and solid rebounding.
The true measure of a leader is not in how he is regarded by the men he favors and who reap the spoils but by those who give up individual glory in the name of the greater good. Players like Thorpe. Players like Brooks, who played a key role in the 15-0 start and is now strictly a cheerleader.
"I have nothing but respect for Rudy and his system," Brooks said. "He didn't play games with me. He never tried to lie to me. At the middle of the season, he said Kenny and Sam were on a roll, they were playing well together, and something had to give. It eats at me, sure. I want to play. But the guy was honest. He was direct."
Just Rudy.
He's taken the black hole that was the Rockets' ability to mine the college draft and hit a rich vein that's produced back-to-back winners in Horry and Cassell. He's assembled a team filled with long-range shooters in his own image as a player -- a 3-point bomber before the NBA painted a line on the floor -- and turned them loose.
Yet he's gone from being one of the worst defenders to ever lace up a pair of sneakers to being a coach who prefers suffocating the other guy with defense than drowning him in offense. Maybe you respect most the things you can't do.
What he has done is worked and worried and fretted and frowned and done all of the things he told his family and his friends he would do if he ever took this job. What he's also done is brought the Rockets to the very brink of a championship without the self-absorption of Pat Riley, the professorial aura of Larry Brown, the philosophical mysticism of Phil Jackson or the look-at-me-I'm-a-genius attitude of Don Nelson.
"I don't know if I'm in this thing for the long term," Tomjanovich said. "Right now, I'm only trying to get through one more series. I love the job, but I'm not comfortable being the celebrity. I can go to Galveston or go to Lake Conroe, and I can't get away. I like to go to a club, have a beer and listen to music, and it's getting tougher for me to do that all the time. Man, I've been missing my music.
"I accept the attention and I try to treat people graciously, and still it does take a toll. It would be the greatest thing if I could coach and still be able to go to the grocery store.
"You know, I want this championship real bad. But once in a while, I want to go out someplace, get something to eat, bite into it and then let all the grease run down my chin and not even worry about wiping it off. That's me."
Just Rudy[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Odinn]Great finds [B]fpliii[/B]. Thanks a lot.:cheers: :cheers:[/QUOTE]
No problem. Sorry I couldn't find anything more useful, but these should be a good read.
:cheers:
Great finds fpliii, are you subscribed to the Houston Chronicle?
[QUOTE=NugzHeat3]Great finds fpliii, are you subscribed to the Houston Chronicle?[/QUOTE]
Nope, NewsBank is one of the sites I have access to, and it contains Chronicle archives going back a bit.
Thanks [B]fpliii[/B] :cheers:
Some stuff I have that may also help answer this question.
[QUOTE]With all due respect to Robinson and Barkley, while it is undeniable that Olajuwon had superb athletic gifts, what really set him apart was the tremendous effort he devoted to honing those gifts. [b]Former Rockets Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said, "He worked very hard to become a great player. He had legendary matchups with Moses Malone in a recreational center called Fonde." Tomjanovich declared of Olajuwon, "I think he's the best all-around center to have ever played the game."[/b][/QUOTE]
[url]http://20secondtimeout.blogspot.ca/2008_08_31_archive.html[/url]
[QUOTE]There's Olajuwon, of course, who now is considered one of the greatest centers ever with Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
"I think you have to argue he can be the best of them," said Tomjanovich, noting Olajuwon recently became the ninth player to have more than 20,000 points and 10,000 rebounds.[/QUOTE]
[url]http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1996-01-03/sports/9601030073_1_rockets-houston-coach-rudy-tomjanovich-olajuwon[/url]
[QUOTE]"This is a hell of a sports era we're living in," said Rudy T. "Guys like Jordan and Wayne Gretzky and now Tiger Woods are all-time greats. And Hakeem is in that group. [b]There are some people who would argue he is the greatest center of all time, and I would be one of them." [/b][/qUOTE]
chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=1997_1406988
[QUOTE]Olajuwon's teammates agree that Hakeem is truly a dream player. They say he is not only relentless, but he makes the other players better.
Beyond that, Olajuwon joins such all-time greats as Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
Houston guard Kenny Smith said comparing Olajuwon to other greats in the past is "like apples, oranges, bananas - they're all fruit."
However, he went on to say that "in offensive terms, as a center, he's been the best, or you'd have to rank him No. 1 or 2 along with Wilt Chamberlain."
Smith continued, "Defensively, he's 1 or 2. A lot of players did a lot of things good, but I think he does a lot of things great."
* * *
[b]Perhaps one day they will make a movie of Olajuwon's life, from a childhood in Nigeria to his college days in Houston to the best player in the NBA. Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich agrees it is an intriguing story.
"What a wonderful story. For a guy who comes to this country and hasn't played a bunch of organized basketball, and he becomes the best player in the league," said Tomjanovich.
Tomjanovich went on to call Olajuwon "right up there" with some of the best inside players ever, saying he'd played against Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.[/b][/QUOTE]
[url]http://www.deseretnews.com/article/355250/MAILMAN-OTHERS-LAUD-MVP-CHOICE.html?pg=all[/url]
[QUOTE=fpliii]Nope, NewsBank is one of the sites I have access to, and it contains Chronicle archives going back a bit.[/QUOTE]
Any way you can possibly locate a Chron archive from 1998 where Oscar talked about Hakeem and late 90s ball in general?
Thanks fpliii and NugzHeat3! Great info.
Threads like this make ISH actually worth coming to.
:applause: :applause: :applause:
tldr
fpliii is a wonderful human being.
[QUOTE=jlip]Threads like this make ISH actually worth coming to.
:applause: :applause: :applause:[/QUOTE]
Indeed. Sure is a nice change from the redudant LeBron vs Kobe bullshit.
Although I appreciate Rudy T for appreciating Moses' hard works, I would love to see him talking about Moses just like he did/does for Hakeem.
At their best, Hakeem is the better one and on par with KAJ, Wilt and Shaq. And he has a point for 'he's the best all-around center to have ever played the game' sentence.
But I think Tomjanovich could talk about Moses Malone a little bit more.
I guess this a little bit relative to being a Houston legend. I mean Tomjanovich played the ball for his entire career in Houston. Coached the team for almost 10 years. Hakeem played 17 seasons for Houston, almost his entire career. Together they won 2 chips. And Moses played 6 seasons in Houston. Compared to Tomjanovich and Hakeem, it's truly a short span.
[QUOTE=NugzHeat3]Any way you can possibly locate a Chron archive from 1998 where Oscar talked about Hakeem and late 90s ball in general?[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=MICHAEL MURPHY, Staff Michael Murphy covers the Rockets for the Chronicle. His notebook appears on Tuesdays.
]
[B][SIZE="6"][CENTER]Robertson decries play of centers[/CENTER][/SIZE][/B]
Houston Chronicle - Tuesday, February 17, 1998
Oscar Robertson is a man whose basketball credentials are impeccable, so when he offers an opinion on a basketball-related subject, there is no credibility problem.
Consider that the 6-5 Robertson established the mold for the big, all-around point guards, even putting together a triple-double season in 1961-62, when he averaged 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists for the Cincinnati Royals, a feat that has been unmatched in NBA history.
But when Robertson looks back on his era, it's not the guard play that stands out but rather the centers - players like Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Nate Thurmond, Walt Bellamy, Willis Reed, Dave Cowens and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, with whom Robertson won an NBA title with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1971.
Robertson feels that, more than any other position, center play in the NBA today comes up short. That fact hit home especially when Robertson, an Indianapolis native, saw that Rik Smits of his hometown Pacers made the Eastern Conference All-Star team this year.
"Yeah, they toss that (the term `All-Star') around pretty loosely these days," said Robertson, shaking his head. "Where I came from, if I had a guy 7-4, he should be tearing the board down. But the guy gets, what, three or four rebounds a game?"
For the record, Smits is averaging seven rebounds a game, but you get the picture. While ripping overall center play in the NBA, however, there is one notable exception in Robertson's eyes - Houston's Hakeem Olajuwon .
"There are no great centers anymore," said Robertson, who was in New York during All-Star Weekend to promote his new book, The Art of Basketball. "Chicago's center (Luc Longley), he's just trying to get out of the way of (Michael) Jordan and (Scottie) Pippen. (Dennis) Rodman is under the basket rebounding. Look at Utah. (Karl) Malone plays the pivot on offense. The other kid, (Greg) Ostertag, he's standing out somewhere, but what is he doing?
"The Kareem type of player is gone forever. I think Olajuwon might bring some hope back once he gets back (fully from knee surgery)."
As one can tell from his comments, Robertson does not hold back his opinion when asked a question. Indeed, Robertson answers those questions in very much the same way he played the game - with as little excess as possible.
So it's easy to see how Robertson cringes when he hears comparisons between players of today, say, Shaquille O'Neal, and players from his day, like Chamberlain. While both are comparable in size (Chamberlain was 7-1 and played most of his career around 300 pounds, while O'Neal is listed at 7-1, 315), that's about as far as the similarities go in Robertson's book.
"In this day and age, Shaq is dominating because of his size," Robertson said. "I don't think he ever saw Kareem play, though. To get a sky hook, for a guy that big, nobody could stop him. But as long as he can power to the basket, who can guard him? Other than (Portland's Arvydas) Sabonis, whose knees are shot, there's nobody.
"Does he (O'Neal) have Wilt-like ability to score 50 points (a game, as Chamberlain did in the 1961-62 season)? No, he does not."
And Robertson doesn't want to hear all the stuff about how players from his era couldn't play the game. He doesn't want to hear how today's players are such better athletes, how they're so much bigger and so much stronger.
"It always amazes me why people think that guys couldn't play (during Robertson's day)," Robertson said. "If Jesse Owens was on a track that was not cinders, no one would catch him. But he ran on those cinder tracks, so all of a sudden you see this kid who broke the record for the 200 meters, (Michael) Johnson, and he's the greatest. Running on the same track with the same conditions, nobody would have caught Jesse Owens.
"But that's history, and America is a country that does not revere its history very much at all. There are great players today. Are there a lot of great players? Probably not."
Especially in the middle.
"I played against the greatest centers in the world, and I wouldn't trade that time for anything," Robertson said. "Look at all those guys who are in the Hall of Fame and the competition they provided on the floor - Russell, Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond, Walt Bellamy. You just can't replace that."
Except in one case - Olajuwon .
When asked how Olajuwon would fare against players like Russell and Chamberlain, Robertson again did not hesitate.
"Tremendous," Robertson said. "The guy gave everyone a lesson. Like when he came in and beat the Knicks (in the 1994 Finals). They had everybody on him but the coach (Pat Riley). He just ate them up. They couldn't handle him. He was so quick, so graceful. He never got upset, either. He never got mad when he got hit or bumped.
"I'll tell you, though, I don't know if his religion hurts him because he fasts for a long time (during Ramadan) and he gets hurt. That takes a lot out of you when you're playing. But I think Hakeem is a tremendous star, a tremendous athlete and a tremendous center."
Takes one to know one.
Newfangled scouting - To say that the art of reviewing games has changed over the years would be an understatement. Where once players convened in a dark room and watched films to get an understanding of an opponent's tendencies, today's players often scout an opponent from the comfort of their living rooms.
The proliferation of satellite packages like DirecTV and the like gives not only fans a wide range of game-viewing options but players as well. And while it may sound hard to believe, many of today's players - with Mario Elie at the head of the pack - will hunker down and watch (or tape) hundreds of games so they can keep a competitive edge.
"A lot of our guys do that," Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich said. "I hear them talking about it all the time where they've watched the game the night before. That's great. Heck, yeah."
Yeah, and it would have been greater had technology like that been available during Tomjanovich's day.
"No, we didn't have that," Tomjanovich said with a laugh. "We had one of those old reel-to-reel tape deals. I took it home one summer, but it was one of those big, heavy things that was tough to lug around, and then the tape would get all tangled up. It was tough. But before that, it was film, and you'd be sitting in the room and the film would burn as you were watching it.
"That was like my first or second year. In fact, in one of these storage rooms here (at Compaq Center) we still have some old movies of me playing against the Celtics. Now that would be something to see."
The last word - "I never did take that (audio-visual) class, so I always had trouble with the machines." - the technologically challenged Rudy Tomjanovich, on his troubles with the old projectors and tape decks the Rockets' scouting department used during his playing days[/QUOTE]
Is this it, perhaps?
Thanks a lot fpliii. :cheers:
That's exactly the one I had in mind.
Odinn, I'm sure there's some stuff out there with Rudy talking about Moses but the Chron is no longer free so you'd have to rely more on other newspaper archives.
Plus, like you said, there's a greater deal of history between Rudy T, Hakeem and the Rockets than there is between Moses so I'm sure there's a bias as well. Their best years came during Hakeem's tenure with him as the head coach and those two had a great relationship so that's naturally going to swing the ball in Hakeem's side.
[QUOTE=NugzHeat3]Thanks a lot fpliii. :cheers:
That's exactly the one I had in mind.
Odinn, I'm sure there's some stuff out there with Rudy talking about Moses but the Chron is no longer free so you'd have to rely more on other newspaper archives.
Plus, like you said, there's a greater deal of history between Rudy T, Hakeem and the Rockets than there is between Moses so I'm sure there's a bias as well. Their best years came during Hakeem's tenure with him as the head coach and those two had a great relationship so that's naturally going to swing the ball in Hakeem's side.[/QUOTE]
:cheers:
Odinn - If you're interested in what Rudy T had to say about Moses, I can do some more searches when I have free time later this week. There are a substantial number of matches though, so if you have any additional keywords in mind that would be helpful. Tomorrow I'll see what I can find by adding 'offensive rebounds' (and 'offensive rebounding'/'offensive boards'/'offensive rebounder' etc.) to the present search to try and find more relevant results.
[QUOTE=fpliii]Unrelated, but thought it'd be worth the post:[/QUOTE]
Great find fpliii! This article adds to the discussion in my [URL="http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=297975"]Was Hakeem ever considered better/ greater than MJ? [/URL] thread.
[QUOTE=jlip]Great find fpliii! This article adds to the discussion in my [URL="http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=297975"]Was Hakeem ever considered better/ greater than MJ? [/URL] thread.[/QUOTE]
I had the thread in mind when I saw the title. Good stuff. :cheers:
[QUOTE=fpliii]Odinn - If you're interested in what Rudy T had to say about Moses, I can do some more searches when I have free time later this week. There are a substantial number of matches though, so if you have any additional keywords in mind that would be helpful. Tomorrow I'll see what I can find by adding 'offensive rebounds' (and 'offensive rebounding'/'offensive boards'/'offensive rebounder' etc.) to the present search to try and find more relevant results.[/QUOTE]
I always think Moses Malone is a underrated name. I think a former teammate of his that coached another all-time great center later, Rudy Tomjanovich, would be great source to find out a healthy opinion about Moses Malone.
Malone's 1979 MVP, or leading a losing record team to the NBA Finals in 1981 while facing 2 elimination games in the WCF.
His 2nd MVP in 1982 could be useful also. 2 consecutive months with 35+ ppg. But Tomjanovich wasn't a active player and a teammate of Malone any more.
If you need a specific words, it'd be 1979 MVP or 1982 MVP and Road to the NBA Finals 1981.
---
I didn't find the post but once I said something like this;
' Hakeem is the only top 10-12 player that is ranked this high based on just 3 consecutive seasons. '
And still I think like that. His career before Rudy Tomjanovich is nothing special when you think about his position in the all-time greats lists.
[url]http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=299559&page=2[/url]
A few days earlier we shared our opinions in this thread.
I ranked Hakeem ahead of Moses.
I consider a player's single best season and the best 3 consecutive seasons while rating their peak.
1994 Hakeem > 1982 or 1983 Moses
1993-95 Hakeem > 1981-83 Moses
But if we extend that span to 5 or more years, the difference between Moses and Hakeem narrower I think.
I live outside of the United States and that's why I started this thread. I do not have the opportunities to search that deep.
Odinn, I will post some stuff on some players comparing Hakeem and Moses from 1986 when Hakeem was getting a lot of praise for his play vs the Lakers and Celtics. Reading them, it seems Hakeem was being compared favorably even at such a young age.
Watching the game right now so will do it a bit later, maybe after the Thunder vs Grizz game.
[QUOTE=NugzHeat3]Odinn, I will post some stuff on some players comparing Hakeem and Moses from 1986 when Hakeem was getting a lot of praise for his play vs the Lakers and Celtics. Reading them, it seems Hakeem was being compared favorably even at such a young age.
Watching the game right now so will do it a bit later, maybe after the Thunder vs Grizz game.[/QUOTE]
1986 playoffs is the only playoffs Hakeem went deep before Rudy T. became his coach. It'd be great to read something about it.
Once, I made an archive that includes every NBA Finals games since the merger. Also there were some games of the championship team games in their conferences. I've watched most of them. It was a huge archieve But the external hdd is broken down and since I'm a student, I do not have enough money to fix it...
After the hdd wenting down, I think I need the media material to keep the things alive in my mind. Also I didn't have games from regular seasons and it was restricting me from providing a healthy opinion.
[SIZE="1"]PS: Do I speak English correctly, fluently? I've never been a place where English is the native language.[/SIZE]
Your English is fine, would've never guessed it wasn't your first language.
That's unfortunate about your hard drive but you can still find a good number of 80s games on youtube especially Laker games under the "lakeptic" channel. Check it out. For instance, both the 1981 and 1986 Lakers vs Rockets playoff series are up there so you can get to know more about both Hakeem and Moses (not sure if you've seen those or not).
I agree with you in regards to the lack of tape making it harder to form an educated and conclusive opinion on something since you're forced to rely more on stats and don't feel quite as confident in your stance which is one reason I don't rank players I didn't see. Also, it's always interesting and important to research and learn about what was being said at the time as contemporary opinion is crucial to evaluating a player imo.
I can post more stuff on 1986 Hakeem exclusively (if you want) but since you asked specifically in regards to Hakeem/Moses, that's what I'm going to post for now....
Bird compares (H)Akeem and Moses during the 1986 playoffs below. I think Bird had once said Moses was the best player he had played against though he retracted that statement after playing against rookie Jordan if I remember correctly.
[QUOTE][Larry Bird] says you can tell that Akeem Olajuwon was tutored by Moses Malone. "They are almost identical, except that Akeem can jump higher," Bird said. Bird also lauds Akeem's ability to move laterally to retrieve his own miss, a la Moses . . . [/QUOTE]
[url]http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/boston/access/660057811.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=May+28%2C+1986&author=Compiled+by+Bob+Ryan&pub=Boston+Globe+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&desc=WHO+WILL+MVP+BE%3F&pqatl=google[/url]
[QUOTE]And now there was Houston, only one win away from sending its Twin Towers against the imposing Boston skyline in the finals. Give Sampson his due on this point—he has long pooh-poohed the front-office's plan as overly cautious. "I didn't want to hear about five-year plans then and I don't want to hear about them now," Sampson said last week, possibly because he, more than anyone, realized the full potential of Olajuwon.
[b]Now the Lakers know it, too. Magic: "In terms of raw athletic ability, Akeem is the best I've ever seen." Lucas: "The rebirth of a bigger Moses Malone." Kupchak: "I can compare him to, maybe, Alvin Robertson in terms of being able to do everything. That tells you something, since Robertson is a guard. I've never seen anyone that strong, that quick, that relentless and who also happens to be seven-feet tall."[/b][/QUOTE]
[url]http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1064854/index.htm[/url]
[QUOTE]Two seasons later, Olajuwon's development continues at its break-neck pace. The Rockets may like Sampson, but they love Akeem.
[b]Said Danny Schayes: "He plays a lot like Moses does, but he's physically more talented. He's quicker, he jumps better, he's stronger.
"As far as having a lot of moves, Akeem doesn't. He just stands in the low post and plows to the basket. He doesn't have the great moves of a Michael Jordan or a Dr. J. He just plays a bull game. But as far as physical talent, he's like a Michael Jordan or a Dr. J.[/b]
"And he's got the Moses Malone complain-game down pretty well. He mumbles and curses the referees but they can't understand what he's saying."
A delight off the court, Olajuwon has a temper on it. He had a fight with Utah's Billy Paultz, whom he sucker-punched before fouling out in the playoff loss that eliminated the Rockets last season. He and Schayes shoved each other before he grabbed Madden and was tossed.
Such things are not unknown for star centers who are held and pushed a lot. Schayes for example, doesn't dislike him.
"Not like you dislike a Bill Laimbeer, who elbows a lot and pushes and shoves and holds," Schayes said. "Akeem doesn't play that way. But he does play very physical."[/quote]
[url]http://articles.latimes.com/1986-05-18/sports/sp-21202_1_taking-center-stage/3[/url]
The SI and LA Times articles are nice reads. You can see the players are essentially saying they're similar but Hakeem has the edge in athleticism.
I'm going to post a bunch of articles this morning. Some of them are relevant, others are interesting reads. :D
[QUOTE=EDDIE SEFKO, Staff][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]Malone's 24 to gain lofty post /Rockets to honor franchise's `pillar'[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
Houston Chronicle - Thursday, April 16, 1998
Another uniform will be raised to the rafters at Compaq Center on Sunday.
Moses Malone's No. 24 will be retired in a ceremony at the regular-season finale against Phoenix. Malone's jersey number will join that of Calvin Murphy (No. 23) and Rudy Tomjanovich (No. 45).
The Rockets were Malone's first NBA team. He played two seasons in the American Basketball Association after making the leap from high school, then played six seasons with the Rockets. His NBA career lasted 19 seasons.
Malone's ceremony will coincide with the Rockets' "Thanks Houston" fan appreciation day Sunday, which will feature the unveiling of the franchise's all-time team to commemorate the 30 years since the Rockets' first season.
Malone's link to the Rockets goes beyond the six seasons he was with the team, starting Oct. 25, 1976, when he was acquired from the Buffalo Braves for first-round draft picks in '77 and '78 and cash. He won two Most Valuable Player awards in Houston (1979 and 1982) and led the Rockets to their first NBA Finals appearance in 1981, taking a team that finished 40-42 in the regular season to within two games of the title.
And near the end of his Rockets tenure, Malone took a young center named, at the time, Akeem Olajuwon (then a University of Houston star) under his wing, tutoring him during endless pickup games at Fonde Recreation Center and helping Olajuwon learn the tricks of the trade that would help him become "Hakeem the Dream."
" Moses was a phenomenal player," said Clyde Drexler, another longtime friend of Malone's. "In his day, he was the most dominant big man in the game. He was Hakeem before Hakeem. And was very good at it."
To a man, Rockets with a link to Malone applauded the decision to retire his number. Owner Leslie L. Alexander has planned to retire Malone's number since early this season, but finding the appropriate time to make the announcement has been difficult.
"That will be fantastic," Olajuwon said of honoring his mentor. "I suggested that idea a long time ago. He made his biggest impact in Houston. And his time here hasn't been appreciated the way it should be. I'm very happy that they are taking the first step in that direction to acknowledge his contribution to basketball and especially to the Houston Rockets."
Malone, reached Wednesday at his home, said he was unaware the Rockets were planning to retire his number as part of the Sunday festivities.
But the Rockets family enthusiastically embraced the idea of honoring one of their greats from the past.
"That's wonderful," said Tomjanovich , who played with Malone for five seasons. "I really enjoyed playing with Moses Malone. We had heard that he was a legend coming out of high school. He was in the ABA at the time, and he was a very slender guy with a big Afro, and within two years he was out there dominating some of the greatest players in the league.
"I think it was that Washington series (in 1977) when they had Elvin Hayes and (Wes) Unseld and we played them in so many close games and Moses was our pillar."
The Rockets won that first-round playoff series four games to two, but none of the contests was decided by more than 10 points. It was then Malone burst onto the NBA scene.
Before he was done playing for eight NBA teams and amassing more than 27,000 points, Malone's rebounding would come to be his signature.
"The most relentless offensive rebounder that I've ever seen," Eddie Johnson said. "And that's saying a lot, especially when you look at Dennis Rodman. But the difference is Moses could score. And Moses was exerting more energy. Rodman only exerts energy on the defensive end now. He exerts none on the offensive end.
" Moses was both ends, getting defensive rebounds, trying to be a presence. He wasn't a great defender, but he had a presence. And his offensive rebounding was unbelievable. He was relentless. That's one thing that's stuck in my mind about him. He could put it on the floor a couple dribbles. He had the jumper. But the most impressive thing is you had to come work on the boards against that man."
As Drexler remembers all too well. Malone ranks No. 5 on the NBA's all-time rebounding list at 16,212. He led the NBA in offensive rebounding eight times, more than anybody in league history. Malone also averaged 20.6 points for his career (24 in his time with the Rockets).
"He'd get the ball back five times in a row if he had to," Drexler said. "Sometimes, he did it just to show people he could do it. He'd get it back as many times as he needed to in order to get the bucket. And very few people in the history of the game have had the kind of success that he enjoyed."
One of the people closest to Malone during his formative years, Rockets executive vice president of basketball Carroll Dawson, said Malone, who also won an MVP award with Philadelphia the first year after the Rockets traded him there, was a gifted rebounder from the beginning.
"I've got a lot of memories of Moses ," Dawson said. "I think he probably taught me a lot more than I did him. What an education. I was a rebounding coach, I felt like. But he really raised my eyebrows. I used to talk to him all the time about his thoughts and ideas about why he got so many rebounds. And he just said: `I don't think any of them are ever going in.'
"He was relentless. He was one of those guys who really developed a responsibility for helping to win games for the franchise, for the fans, everybody. He was very sensitive to that. And every time we lost, he really felt like he let everyone down. He really took it very personal. And you don't see that very much anymore. He really showed it. He felt a great responsibility for going out there and winning."
And, Dawson says, Malone was a warrior.
"I thought he and Dr. J (Julius Erving) were the only guys who really never took a night off no matter who you're playing," Dawson said. "You go out and play a bad team, and you know you're going to win anyway, he's still playing hard. He never took a night off. I've got a great amount of respect for him. And I cried when we lost him."
Even after he left the Rockets, Malone, who also wore No. 21 briefly in Houston, had an influence on the current Rockets. Charles Barkley credits Malone as the one player who taught him how to work hard enough to be a success in the NBA.
"I looked up to Moses more than any other player I ever knew," said Barkley, who played with Malone on the 76ers. "He was the hardest worker in the game."
Thanks Houston
The schedule for the Thanks Houston Day festivities Sunday:
1:30-4 p.m. - Pepsi Million-Dollar Shot semifinals for 100 fans who have been chosen. The contest will be near the Edloe entrance to Compaq Center. Public is invited.
5 p.m. - Rockets vs. Phoenix Suns. All fans entering the arena will receive a Gatorade/Randalls Rally Rag.
Pre-game introductions - All 15 Rockets players will be introduced with 15 season-ticket holders who have been chosen at random receiving a jersey from one of the players.
During the game - Periodic promotions for selected fans to receive prizes.
Halftime - Introduction of the 10-man, 30-year team; retirement of Moses Malone's jersey; finals of the Gatorade NBA Rockets Dream contest; finals of the Pennzoil Stop 'N' Go Race to the Finish.
Postgame - All fans will receive commemorative posters of the 30-year team upon leaving the building.
Postgame - A private reception and playoff tip-off party for the Rockets, Malone, the 30th-anniversary team and invited guests.[/QUOTE]
Decent article...
[QUOTE=MICHAEL MURPHY, Staff][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]Rockets, Rudy T set to visit mentors[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
Houston Chronicle - Friday, January 12, 1996
It might be back-to-back games in Los Angeles, but for Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich , tonight's meeting with the Lakers and Saturday's contest against the Clippers is going to be like old home week.
The game against the Lakers means going against Del Harris, the man who gave Tomjanovich his break in the coaching business in 1983. Prior to that, Tomjanovich had been a scout after his playing days ended in 1981. Saturday's game reunites Tomjanovich with former Rockets coach Bill Fitch, under whom he honed his craft.
"Yeah, that is going to be a great thrill for me," Tomjanovich said. "I coached under both of those guys. Del was the guy who got me into coaching and gave me the opportunity. And then I had five years under Bill and really learned a great deal about work ethic and preparation. I was the advance scout for both of those guys and had a little bit of a bigger role with Fitch than with Harris."
First up is Harris, whose work last season with the Lakers earned him NBA Coach of the Year honors after leading the team to a 48-34 record in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year. The award was the culmination of 31 years of coaching that included ports of call in college, Europe, South America, the American Basketball Association as well as the NBA. Harris, who led the Rockets to their first NBA Finals in 1981, is two wins shy of 400 for his career.
Tomjanovich can see traces of Harris' varied background in the play of the Lakers.
"He's had different influences," Tomjanovich said. "When he was with us (1979-83), we had Moses (Malone) and the inside game, which I really believe in a lot. Then he wound up going (to Milwaukee as an assistant) with Nellie (Don Nelson) and a lot of their stuff is putting the ball on the floor, isolations and dribble-type plays. He didn't have the power-type guys then, and he really got away from that power inside game.
"Now he's got a mixture of both. He has athletes like (Cedric) Ceballos and (Nick) Van Exel, and big guys like (Vlade) Divac and (Elden) Campbell, so it's a combination of his early years and the Nellie years."
That versatility is what makes the Lakers so dangerous. But while they were the surprise team of last year, the Lakers are the surprise of this season for another reason. At 18-17, they are barely treading water, but losing five one-point games could be part of the problem.
But the biggest problem has been inconsistency. Ceballos has been a rock, averaging 23.6 points and 7.7 rebounds, but second-year guard Eddie Jones is averaging 11 points, and has failed to reach double figures in seven of the past 12 games. Van Exel is shooting just 40 percent from the floor while averaging 14.8 points, down more than two points from his breakthrough season last year.
"They have a good backcourt," said Rockets point guard Kenny Smith. "They have a lot of those midsized guards (the 6-6 Jones, 6-4 Anthony Peeler and 6-2 Sedale Threatt), so it makes it more interesting.
"Nick is so unorthodox. He's lefthanded, but he's not like Kenny Anderson, who's also lefthanded. He (Anderson) does things that are pretty normal while Van Exel is more unorthodox. He jumps off the wrong foot to take his shot and he passes one way when you think he's passing another. That's what makes him so unorthodox."
The Lakers have the ability to pound you inside, though, with the 7-1 Divac and the 6-11 Campbell in the paint. And with Ceballos attacking the offensive glass or filling the lanes in transition, the Lakers are one of the most dangerous teams in the league, despite their near-.500 record.
"I think I'm surprised because last year they caught a lot of people by surprise," Brown said. "You could still tell they were a good team. After a while it was no longer a surprise. They stayed consistent last year pretty much throughout the whole year. I'm pretty sure they'll turn it up when it's time to make the playoffs or get in the playoffs.
"I still wouldn't want to play them in the playoffs. I think they're scary."[/QUOTE]
A Rudy T spotlight:
[QUOTE=EDDIE SEFKO: Staff][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]NBA '92 - COMING ATTRACTIONS - Rockets to tee off Rudyball[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
Houston Chronicle - Sunday, NOVEMBER 1, 1992
Climbing the corporate ladder is a long, slow process in most businesses. But usually, after 20 or 25 years, most hard workers who have stayed with the same firm find a comfortable level.
And then there's one Rudolph Tomjanovich . Had he been 5-8 instead of 6-8 and gone into bookkeeping instead of basketball, Tomjanovich would be up for a gold watch about now.
But Rudy T. instead became the ultimate Rocket man. And 23 years of rising through the ranks in the organization has finally landed Tomjanovich in the big chair.
"Yeah," Tomjanovich says, "it's kind of coming to a climax thing, isn't it?"
Indeed it is. Working for the Rockets as a player, scout and assistant coach was fun. Pressure? Oh, sure, there was some pressure, but nothing out of the ordinary.
And then came the head-coaching position, the one with the big bucks and the big headaches and small job security.
Tomjanovich begins his first full season as coach of the Rockets after 22 years of service in other areas and two months of apprenticeship at the end of last season as the interim coach.
It's time to tee off with Rudy T.
And it very much is like the end of a journey. If the Rockets succeed in the next months and years, Tomjanovich will look like the CEO who led the company back to prominence.
If the club struggles, somewhere down the line Tomjanovich will pay the price. He is at the top with the club with which he has been employed for more than half his life. This would seem to be his last stop with the organization.
And it is fitting that Tomjanovich finally reached this position.
There wasn't one particular point when Tomjanovich became synonymous with Rockets basketball. Tomjanovich can't pinpoint a time when it happened, only that over the course of some very difficult times, the association grew.
"We paid a lot of dues," Tomjanovich says. "One year, we had 13 home games in San Antonio, and every time, the fans booed us and cheered for whoever we were playing. We went through some hard times when no one was coming to see us play.
"Once you go through something like that, you can't help but have a feeling for an organization."
And the feeling is mutual. Owner Charlie Thomas and general manager Steve Patterson believe Tomjanovich is prepared tobe the next coach to burst onto the scene with huge success.
Tomjanovich hopes to legitimize their faith by using the same formula he did to succeed at other levels in the organization.
"I feel like the reason I have stayed with the Rockets for so long is because I busted my butt," Tomjanovich says. "I gave them an honest day's work as a player and an assistant.
"I'm not a yes man. I'm loyal, but I always tried to make my feelings known in a constructive way."
Loyalty is a word deeply ingrained in Tomjanovich , something for which the Rockets can be thankful. As a kid, when Tomjanovich was knocking around the streets of Hamtramck, Mich., he learned a lot of things.
Like most people, Tomjanovich 's character was molded during the years when he was growing up, in blue-collar Detroit.
"I considered myself really lucky," Tomjanovich says. "A lot of people might not have thought it was the greatest place, but when the surveys would come out, we always were No. 1 in Michigan in a lot of areas. It's all relative, and I thought it was a great place."
Tomjanovich could look out the back window of his home growing up and see the Chrysler plant a few hundred yards away.
Hamtramck is an inner-city area, and it is where Tomjanovich first learned the value of loyalty.
"It was predominantly a black area, but everybody in the neighborhood stuck together," he says. "It wasn't like gangs. It was just real strong relationships between all the kids on the same block. It was a feeling of, `Hey, this is our territory.'
"We all looked out for each other."
The toughest thing Tomjanovich faced growing up wasn't the pitfalls in the neighborhood. It was getting a foothold in the game that would become his life.
"In junior high school, I never played basketball," Tomjanovich says. "We had a great team, and I just couldn't play.
"Then when I was a freshman, I was cut from the freshman team. All my buddies were on the team, and I wanted to make it, so I challenged the coach to a game of one-on-one.
"I wound up beating him, and he let me back on the team."
It was the first break for Tomjanovich . From then on, he would make his own breaks. He gave up on Little League as he began to grow. He started hanging out at the playground and began playing against better competition, including some good college players.
The proving ground was at Copernicus Junior High ("Named after that great Polish astronomer," Tomjanovich jokes). Players from all around Detroit would migrate for some of the pickup games there.
Tomjanovich remained true to his homeland when it came time to pick a college. He could have gone anywhere, but it came down to Michigan and Michigan State. He chose the Wolverines and was an All-American for a better-than-average team.
Then came the NBA draft. Chosen second overall by the San Diego Rockets, Tomjanovich came into the league surrounded by high expectations.
"I really was kind of an undisciplined player," he says. "I was not real well-blessed in the fundamentals of the game."
It showed in his rookie season, when he averaged only 5.3 points and five rebounds.
"My first year was a disappointment," Tomjanovich says. "In San Diego, I was known as a first-round flop. It was tough to go around San Diego and hear people ask why the franchise drafted me."
Fate intervened. The franchise was moved to Houston in June 1971, and Tomjanovich no longer had to worry about what San Diegans thought of him.
Not that the tough times were over. Tomjanovich and the Rockets went through a lot of misery in those early years in Houston.
"I always thought just getting to the NBA was a big deal," Tomjanovich said. "But (then-general manager) Pete Newell took me aside and worked with me, and he and (then-head coach) Tex Winter probably did as much as anybody to help me become a good basketball player.
"We still had some teams that weren't very good."
But Tomjanovich 's skills grew, and the Rockets upgraded their team with players like Calvin Murphy, Mike Newlin and, in 1976, John Lucas and Moses Malone. The Rockets became a strong NBA team.
"When Moses and Lucas came, it got to be a lot of fun after all those years of struggling," he says.
The Rockets made the playoffs several years and finally, in Tomjanovich 's last season as a player, made it to the 1981 NBA Finals.
What followed were a couple of seasons scouting opponents and time serving as an assistant to head coaches Bill Fitch and Don Chaney. Tomjanovich had other opportunities. He could have jumped the Rockets' ship and moved to another team.
But he preferred to stay. His reasoning was sound. He likes Houston. Houston likes him. Why change?
Of course, if the Rockets don't get back to the playoffs this season, Tomjanovich 's long, fruitful association with the club could be jeopardized.
With any luck, Tomjanovich won't have to experience that feeling. But if he does, he already realizes he has beaten the odds. Spending 23 years with the same company in any business is a little unusual. That tenure with one NBA team is almost unheard of, especially when that tenure started as a player.
"I've been very, very lucky in the people I've been around in my life," he says. "My friends have been very good."
Loyalty like Tomjanovich 's deserves nothing less.[/QUOTE]
The comparison is limited at best, but a good read nonetheless:
[QUOTE=TERRY BLOUNT, Staff][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]'94 NBA FINALS/FINALS FLASHBACK/THE ROCKETS HAVE MADE THE NBA FINALS TWICE BEFORE, LOSING BOTH TIMES TO THE BOSTON CELTICS. AS THE TEAM RETURNS TO THE FINALS, THE MEMORY REMAINS./1981/Plodding team makes spirited ru[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
Houston Chronicle - Wednesday, June 8, 1994
MORE than halfway into the 1980-81 season, the Rockets were 20-27 after a loss at home to the New York Knicks. With five games to go in the regular season, the team was 36-41 after a 107-103 loss at Portland
The Rockets made the playoffs with a record of 40-42 and appeared headed for a quick exit.
Well, at least that was what almost everyone thought when the team traveled to Los Angeles to play the defending NBA champion Lakers of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magic Johnson.
"We were so slow, they were calling us the Water Buffaloes," said Rudy Tomjanovich , who was playing the final year of his NBA career. "We started Billy Paultz and Moses Malone inside and concentrated on the half-court game.
"I had gotten injured and wasn't in the rotation, but it was the Lakers who just couldn't get their motors rolling. They were baffled by having to play in our half-court style, which wasn't their strength."
The Rockets shocked the Lakers in Game 1 with a 111-107 victory, thanks to a 38-point performance by Malone. The Lakers won Game 2 at Houston 111-106, but the Rockets did the incredible by beating the Lakers again in LA to end the three-game series with an 89-86 victory.
"We were a real Cinderella team that year," Tomjanovich said. "No one thought we could do well in the playoffs, but the chemistry came together at the right time. The slower style of play in the playoffs was a rhythm which helped us excel."
The Rockets were in danger of bowing out in the second round when they had to play a seventh game in San Antonio against George Gervin and the Spurs, but veteran guard Calvin Murphy came off the bench to pump in 42 points and lead Houston to a 105-100 victory at HemisFair Arena.
That was the last difficult hurdle to the NBA Finals. The Rockets eliminated the Kansas City Kings in five games.
Then it was on to the NBA Finals for the first time in Rockets history. The Rockets were huge underdogs to the powerful Boston Celtics of Larry Bird, Robert Parish, Nate Archibald and Kevin McHale, but the series was tied 2-2 after four games.
Bill Fitch, who was head coach of the Celtics that year, said his players weren't worried.
"We had respect for Houston," Fitch said. "But we knew if we played our game, they couldn't beat us four times. We figured when we won the East over Philadelphia in a seventh game after being down 3-1, we had won the world championship right there."
The 1981 Finals always will be remembered for the famous quote by Malone when he was asked how good the Celtics really were. Said Malone: "I could take me and four guys from Petersburg and beat them."
It was six years earlier that Malone had gone straight to pro basketball from high school in Petersburg, Va. The Celtics got a nice laugh out of his statement and went on to defeat the Rockets in Games 5 and 6 to win the title, ending the series with a 102-91 victory at The Summit. But it had been a record-setting run for a team that surprised the league.
"At one time we held nine playoff records," said Del Harris, the new coach of the Lakers who was the Rockets' coach in 1981. "But most of those records are going down now. The record of ours that I don't think will get broken is eight road victories. That's the only one that I always thought would last."
Harris compared the 1981 Rockets team with the 1994 team that is favored to win the NBA championship.
"There's certainly some similarities," he said. "Both teams were built around a great center, utilizing perimeter shooting. We had Murphy and Mike Dunleavy as our guards who were very good outside shooters, and Rudy was an excellent outside shooter.
"This year's team is probably a little more athletic overall than the other one was. We had limited depth, like they do. And we staked our claim on defense, like they are."
"We held teams nine consecutive times below 100 points," Harris said. "That was a record that held up until Detroit broke it at the end of the '80s.
Unlike the 1981 Rockets team, few people would be surprised if the 1994 team won it all.
"I think the title is up grabs," Harris said. "It's wide open for the Rockets to take it."
The roster
STARTERS
C Moses Malone -- The premier center in the game at the time. He averaged 27.8 points and 14.8 rebounds that season. Malone was traded to Philadelphia in 1982 and led the 76ers to the NBA title in 1983.
F/C Billy Paultz -- He started only 29 games in the regular season, but started every game at power forward in the Finals, averaging 11 points and five rebounds.
F Robert Reid -- The starting small forward who averaged 16 points and seven rebounds for the season. He is one of only two players (Allen Leavell is the other) who played on both the 1981 and 1986 teams that reached the NBA Finals. Reid played 10 seasons for the Rockets.
G Mike Dunleavy -- Averaged 10.5 points while starting 35 games in the regular season. Dunleavy now is the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks.
G Tom Henderson -- He started 45 games in the regular season and all six games in the Finals. Henderson averaged five points and five assists for the season.
RESERVES
G Calvin Murphy -- An outstanding 5-9 guard who was in the twilight of his career at age 33. He averaged 16.7 points in the regular season while coming off the bench and averaged 10 points in the Finals. Murphy played all 13 years of his career with the Rockets. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame last year. His No. 23 jersey has been retired. Murphy now is the team's color commentator for TV broadcasts.
F Rudy Tomjanovich -- An injury plagued season turned out to be the final of his career. The starting small forward for the team for many years was no longer in the rotation by the time the playoffs rolled around. He finished the regular season averaging 11.6 points and four rebounds per game. Tomjanovich , who played all 11 NBA seasons in Houston, was named Rockets coach in February 1992.
G Allen Leavell -- A backup point guard who averaged eight points and five assists a game. Leavell played 10 seasons for the Rockets.
F Bill Willoughby -- Averaged six points and four rebounds while coming off the bench at power forward.
F Calvin Garrett -- Averaged six points and four rebounds at small forward.
F Major Jones -- A power forward who was known as a solid defensive player[/QUOTE]
Spotlight on the 81 team:
[QUOTE=MICHAEL MURPHY, Staff][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]BASKETBALL THE FINALS FRONTIER - DESPITE A LOSING RECORD, MALONE & CO. LIVED WHAT MANY THOUGHT THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM 1981[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
Houston Chronicle - Sunday, June 10, 2001
HERE must be some cosmic significance about Moses Malone, the playoffs and the number four. In 1983, when asked how his Sixers would do in the playoffs, Malone responded, "Fo', fo' and fo'," meaning the Sixers would put together three straight four-game sweeps on their way to the NBA title.
Darned if he wasn't almost right.
The Sixers lost just once, to Milwaukee in the Eastern Conference finals, and swept the Los Angeles Lakers in the Finals for Malone's only NBA championship.
But two years earlier, Malone, then with the Rockets, made headlines with a far bolder - and more controversial - Finals four-cast.
After splitting the first four games with the Celtics, Malone opined, "I don't think Boston is all that good. . . . I could get four guys from the streets of Petersburg (Va., his hometown) and beat them."
It didn't quite work out that way, with Boston closing out the Rockets in six games. But 20 years later, Malone laughed at his defiant statement.
"Man, I was the original trash-talker," said Malone, who was recently inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. "Before anyone else started talking trash, I was doing it. When I made a comment like that back in those days, it was a big thing. Nowadays people make comments like that and they get commercials.
"I believed in what I said because I wasn't really thinking about Boston when I said that I could get four guys from Petersburg and beat these guys. I was letting my team, the Houston Rockets, know that we could beat them. We had to prepare ourselves to come and play these guys.
"Everyone was saying that we didn't have a chance and that they (the Celtics) were going to win the whole thing and probably sweep us. But we had won two games and I had an idea that we could beat them. I wanted the guys (his teammates) to believe that we could win."
They didn't.
With the Celtics taking umbrage at Malone's statement, Boston blew out the Rockets in Games 5 (109-80) and 6 (102-91) to capture the first of three titles in the Larry Bird era.
But Malone's words now represent a humorous footnote to a series that is remembered with equal parts fondness and bitterness by the Houston players who were involved in the franchise's first championship experience.
"I just remember that was the first time any Houston team in either major-league football, baseball or basketball had played in a championship series," said then-coach Del Harris, now an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks. "The fans, the city, the mayor - everybody was excited.
"It couldn't have been better. It was a wonderful time to be in Houston."
Part of the frenzy stemmed from the fact that, after finishing with a 40-42 record and making the playoffs with a win in the next-to-last game of the regular season, the Rockets had to be perhaps the most unlikely Finals entrant in league history.
And one of the ugliest, at least when it comes to playing style.
Harris decided to go with what he called his "Water Buffaloes" lineup, putting 6-11, 250-pound Billy Paultz alongside Malone. Paultz, known as "The Whopper" because of his bulk, set the screens that allowed Houston shooters like Calvin Murphy, Mike Dunleavy, Robert Reid and Allen Leavell the room to launch their jumpers.
But putting Paultz into the lineup meant that Harris was forced to make a difficult decision - benching Rudy Tomjanovich .
"That was tremendously difficult," Harris said. "Rudy was probably my favorite player when I was there. I liked all of the players, but there was something special about Rudy. But it (the lineup) didn't work with three big guys together up front.
"As disappointed as Rudy was to be lifted out of the starting lineup, he was a gentleman all the way. I've respected him for that ever since, and to this moment I consider him one of my very good friends."
Tomjanovich had little to say about the situation.
"It was tough to deal with," he said. "You want to be out there, but that (sitting on the bench) is the deal. You just have to deal with it."
The Rockets won 12 of their last 21 games, not bad for a team that finished under .500, to make the playoffs. They would face the defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, who had stumbled into the opening-round miniseries after Magic Johnson played just 37 regular-season games because of torn knee cartilage.
But the Rockets had an ace up their sleeve - Malone.
"They were Showtime back then, so they were tough," Leavell said. "The thing in our favor was the fact that Kareem did not like to see Big Mo. He used to get migraines when Big Mo came to town. At least it seemed like that. He (Malone) wasn't going to let us lose."
The Rockets shocked the Lakers 111-107 in Game 1 behind Malone's 38 points, but the Lakers came back to win Game 2 in Houston 111-106, setting up Game 3 in Los Angeles. The game was not decided until late, when Johnson airballed a short runner in the lane, allowing the Rockets to escape with an 89-86 victory.
"That had to be the shortest airball in playoff history," Leavell said. "He was right at the basket. I mean, he was right inside the free-throw line, so to shoot an airball. . . . But that's pressure."
The Rockets advanced to the second round, where they would play a San Antonio team that was perhaps a bit overconfident since it had destroyed Houston 135-109 in the final game of the regular season.
But in what became one of the NBA's classic playoff series, the Rockets won in seven games, with Murphy doing most of the damage in Game 7 with 42 points to give the Rockets a 105-100 victory on the Spurs' home court.
"Of all the games I've coached, and I've been doing this since 1959, so this is 42 years and about 2,000 games as a head coach and about 1,000 in the NBA, that is one of the greatest games I've ever been involved in," Harris said of Game 7.
The Rockets swamped Kansas City, another 40-42 team, in the Western Conference finals, beating the Kings in five games to advance to the Finals, where they would play a Boston team that was dead on its feet after rallying from a 3-1 deficit to beat Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference finals.
Once again, the Rockets stunned the league by winning 92-90 in Game 2 in Boston, but the Celtics crushed them 94-71 in Game 3 at The Summit.
The Rockets came back for a 91-86 win in Game 4, and Malone let loose with his "four guys from Petersburg" line afterward, making some of his teammates cringe.
"Man, the Celtics were sleepwalking against us in the Finals," Reid said. "But Moses goes up and says, `I could get four boys from Petersburg and beat them.' Well, your MVP says it, so you have to back him up. When the media asked me what I thought about it, I said, `Well, I need to go grab my mom. I might have been born in Petersburg with the big fella.'
"But that was for the public. Some of the guys were like, `Man, why did Moses say that?' But if the big fella says that, then we're supposed to go to war with him."
They went to war and lost, but they have good memories of that magical '81 playoff run.
"We had a chance to be the first Houston team to win a championship," Malone said. "Unfortunately, though, we didn't. We had a lot of great players on that team, and a lot of those guys are still my good friends. We get together sometimes and talk about it.
"Those were some good times."
...
1980-81 ROCKETS: WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
Player .. Where now
Mike Dunleavy .. Ex-Portland Trail Blazers coach
Calvin Garrett .. Whereabouts unknown
Thomas Henderson .. Living in Houston
Major Jones .. Works at Fonde Recreation Center
Allen Leavell .. Living in Houston
Moses Malone .. Retired, living in Houston
Calvin Murphy .. TV analyst, Houston Rockets
John Stroud .. Whereabouts unknown
Robert Reid .. Living in Houston
Billy Paultz .. Retired, living in New Jersey
Rudy Tomjanovich .. Head coach, Houston Rockets
Bill Willoughby .. Works for New Jersey Parks and Recreation
Coach Del Harris .. Assistant coach, Dallas Mavericks[/QUOTE]
The Rudy mention is minor, but it's relevant to the Moses discussion:
[QUOTE=Ross Atkin, Sports writer of The Christian Science Monitor][B][CENTER][SIZE="6"]Meet Moses Malone, MVP candidate; baseball Yanks hit the basepaths[/SIZE][/CENTER][/B]
Christian Science Monitor, The (Boston, MA) - Thursday, March 4, 1982
If the National Basketball Association handed out MVP ballots tommorow, Moses Malone might wrestle the award away from the likes of Larry Bird, Julius Erving, and Sidney Moncrief. It's hard to imagine any player being more valuable to his team, or sustaining such a long hot streak.
Houston's 6 ft. 10 in. center scored 30 or more points in all but one game in February. The rampage included several out-and-out spectaculars, such as the three-game string in which he scored 45, 53 (an NBA season high), and 47 points.
The beauty of Malone's play goes beyond just points, however. He may be most dangerous as a rebounder. In scoring 53 points, for example, he also grabbed 22 rebounds, and on another occasion, he outrebounded the entire Seattle team 32-29. His reputation, in fact, was built by sweeping the boards, especially at the offensive end
Unlike some players, Moses has never gone after the eye-opening statistics as an end in themselves. A team man through and through, he's upped his scoring to boost the Rockets, whose February winning percenate of .786, not coincidentally, was the best in the franchise's 15-year existence.
Run, Yankees, run The New York Yankees hope to sport a new look this season, with more speed and less power. To help out, the club hired Harrison Dillard to work as a spring training running instructor this week. An Olympic sprinter in 1948 and 1952, he once beat team owner George Steinbrenner in the hurdles.
This transformation should make the Yankees a little more like the scratch-and-claw Oakland A's, whose hustling brand of baseball was labeled ''Billyball'' last year. The inspiration behind this coined word, of course, was Manager Billy Martin, twice fired by Steinbrenner as the Yankee boss.
'Mildcats' in basketball too Colleges that do poorly in football generally try to redeem themselves on the basketball court. Northwestern University knows it isn't easy. The Wildcat football team has won just three football games during the past six years and not had a winning season since 1971, but the basketball team is completing its 13th straight losing campaign.
Small home crowds, an outdated arena, and high academic standards can make recruiting a real challenge. To top things off, McGaw Hall will soon undergo extensive renovations, forcing the basketball team to find temporary quarters all next season. Coach Rick Falk, however, is confident that a larger, modernized facility will help down the line.
Rough play in the NBA Anyone who tuned in last Sunday's pro basketball telecast saw Boston's Larry Bird catch a vicious elbow to the head. The accidental blow was delivered by Milwaukee's Harvey Catchings, not with intent to harm but as the hair-trigger reaction of a rebounder in traffic. In the wake of the incident, which has sidelined Bird for several games, the Boston Globe came out with an article about the possible need for an ''enforcer'' to protect the Celtic superstar.
Bill Fitch, Boston's coach, responded to the idea in the negative. Besides feeling Bird can take care of himself, he also believes the heavy penalty meted out to Kermit Washington for striking Rudy Tomjanovich during the 1977-78 season has made any sort of retaliatory acts ill-advised.
The league has moved wisely to snuff out obvious court violence, yet referees must remain on the lookout for attempts to rough-up star players through covert acts of intimidation. [/QUOTE]